Review: The Vampire Lestat, "Toronto" | Season 3, Episode 3

Having an interview as a centerpiece is a tried-and-tested narrative structure utilized by factual and fictional television alike. On reality TV, confessional talking heads make it seem as if one person is making comments and observations about events, while only occasionally hearing the producer asking the questions from off-screen. A sit-down in a drama can take different forms, such as police questioning witnesses (and suspects) in Big Little Lies or a journalist like Daniel Malloy talking to a vampire in 1973 or the 2020s. Creator Rolin Jones made inventive choices with the source material framing across the first two seasons of Interview with the Vampire, and he continues to do so in The Vampire Lestat.

Lestat’s narration is a confession from the future, peppered with hints about what is to come, that is seemingly being recorded solo, yet could be taking a page from the reality setup. By playing with form and perspective, the show makes it hard to trust that everything we see is fact. Even when Lestat is at his most honest in “Toronto,” it is still part of an act as he struggles to admit the truth of his vampire origins. Regret is an overarching theme in a week where Lestat contemplates his muses, and Louis confronts the past as this episode kicks it up another gear. 

Performative vampire, performative journalist. That is how Lestat describes the meaning of the song “Long Face” and what Daniel is doing. The roles and expectations of interview subject and interviewee are under the microscope, with Lestat fake-crying as he delivers his version of what he believes Louis was like during his sit-down. Lestat wants to project authenticity, admitting he had a stutter when he was human, and refuses to sugarcoat that his band can only sell out small venues. At his most unvarnished and raw, Lestat plays a “mean-spirited telepathic prank” on Daniel, as this insight is for Daniel alone. It is off the record, except that Daniel had no idea until he played back the video. If every story is tinged with the unreliable narrator aspect, it makes you question everything. However, even lies, exaggerations, or what is left unsaid can be revelatory. 

Take Lestat’s desire to skip over parts of his romance with Nicky. Or how he disagrees with how Louis retold this story. The series is a meditation on the pieces of ourselves that we share and the discomfort of personal anecdotes escaping containment. How we sound to ourselves doesn’t always match how we are perceived. Having Daniel opt for Interrotron cameras is destabilizing, as we are used to seeing Daniel sitting opposite Louis. Daniel now uses the setup that documentarian Errol Morris devised, which allows the interviewer and interviewee to look into each other's eyes while sitting apart. The intention is to make a subject feel more comfortable, but I think Daniel is keen to try anything that might lead to a breakthrough. Lestat takes the opportunity later on to bark at the person in his eyeline to pull off his trick. “Serving cunt has its consequences,” Lestat’s voiceover teases. What those consequences are isn’t clear at this point, as Lestat continues to drop more breadcrumbs. 

Lestat and Daniel make for interesting adversaries as they both think they are smarter than the other. Repetition is a tool Daniel favors to get a subject to reveal the truth. He did it to Louis as he now does to Lestat. The show follows a pattern of replaying and reexamining significant moments, further underscoring how memory, trauma, and time can reshape an experience. Take Lestat and Armand in the box at the theater, which differs greatly from Armand’s depiction of this story in Season 2’s “No Pain.” In each version, a desperate Nicky struggles to keep it together as he plays the violin. For Armand, it is an erotic encounter in which Lestat instigates a very public hookup on the floor of the box and says he loves Armand. But in Lestat’s memory, he does not say those three words. Quite the opposite: “Christ! There’s not room enough in this box for your desperation.”  

The most significant change is that Gabriella is present in this scene, peppering Armand with questions about other covens in Italy, showing zero interest in the drama playing out on and off the Parisian theatrical stage. Introducing Gabriella into these scenes also prompts questions about Armand because why didn’t he mention Lestat’s fledgling, who is also Lestat’s mother? Not that I think this scene is a retcon, but there is an endless supply of get-out-of-jail-free cards when a show is deliberately playing with perspective.